#43 Chad Grills on the Military, the Mission, & What’s Next for Branded Media

Chad Grills is a US Army veteran, writer, & CEO of The Mission, a media company that publishes stories, videos, podcasts & a daily newsletter designed to accelerate learning. The Mission creates branded podcasts & sponsorships for world class companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra. The Mission is also the largest active publication on the platform Medium.

For context, one of my roles on Gary Vaynerchuk’s personal brand team was helping get Gary’s content syndicated, so I first got connected to Chad in 2016 when he reached out to try to get Gary’s content on The Mission. In have been a consumer of The Mission’s content and sometimes a contributor since that time.

We cover:

-Chad’s time in the military & how he applied that to business

-Why he started The Mission on Medium & his strategy for getting big name contributors

-What makes for great writing & storytelling

-Why podcasting is the next big medium, lessons from entrepreneurial “failures” & more!

Note: this is not an episode dedicated to the nitty gritty tactics of growing on Medium. If you want to hear about specific medium growth strategies, you should check out Episode 23 of the podcast where Tom Kuegler & I have an in depth conversation about specifics (iTunes, Website).